Nobody understands these $425 fake-mud jeans

You work a desk job where the biggest danger to your chinos is a coffee spill, but you long to live a life of physical work, like the beaten-down antihero in a vintage Bruce Springsteen song.

For just $425 (£330, AU$565), clothing retailer Nordstrom will feed your delusion with a pair of Barracuda Straight Leg Jeans complete with a "crackled, caked-on muddy coating that shows you're not afraid to get down and dirty."

The jeans appear to be absolutely filthy, like you've been crawling through a mud pit, but it's all an illusion. Nordstrom says the pants "embody rugged, Americana workwear that's seen some hard-working action." The jeans are made in Portugal.

More weird jeans

Customers got snarky in the reviews section, offering up some zingers Monday and Tuesday: "These are perhaps the best jeans I've ever owned. Perfectly match my stick on calluses." And another: "Gotta love being able to look like I have fed the pigs, helped deliver a calf, and get the tractor unstuck without ever having to leave my BMW. Love it."

Later on Tuesday, the reviews disappeared. Nordstrom didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Nordstrom may be selling the jeans, but the retailer didn't invent them. PRPS, the brand behind the dirty jeans, also offers a matching $425 Mud Denim Jacket so you can rock the Canadian tuxedo look. PRPS specializes in highly distressed denim covered in holes, rips and patches.

This isn't the first time the internet has freaked out on Nordstrom. There was a lot of online scoffing over the perplexing fashion statement made by these Clear Knee Mom Jeans with plastic windows over the knees. Now if only we could get a pair of pre-stained and muddied jeans with see-through knees, then we will have achieved a whole new level of useless fashion.

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